Poker Confessionals from an Amateur Player

The SUMMER HEATER COOLER that Ended Well – Part 1

It’s the very first hand of the $200 Guaranteed Summer Heater at Borgata, Day 2…the chipleader at my table, a younger preppy-looking college guy in a plaid shirt, raises from the hijack position. The action folds to me in the small blind, I’m 2nd in chips…and I look down at:

POCKET ACES. Bullets, American Airlines, Pocket Rockets, and my new nickname for them – Ask Altucher. Bottom line – the best friggin’ starting hand in No Limit Texas Holdem’! Ohhhhh I was gonna milk this hand for all that it was worth.

MY OSCAR MOMENT

With the blinds at 3/6K Preppy Plaid Guy had raises it to 15K. This is my chance to send this kid back to school. The action folds to me and I look down at my AA again, and put them back on the felt, and then go into acting mode. I take a pregnant pause and announce, “Raise.” I put out a 30K 3bet…CUE quivering lip (YES, I had isolated it to the corner of my lower RIGHT lip)!! When I don’t get an immediate reaction or action from him I just stare at the board and bring out more show – I bulge my eyes, make my brow disconcertingly creased…somewhere in there he 4bets to 110K. “YES!!!” I’m thinking…

Time for the grand finale in my shtick… I mentally count to three, then 5bet shove ALL IN for 162.5K, and prompt a drop of sweat to trickle down my forehead. #JK. That last one didn’t happen, but IF I could have had a Vh1 Pop Up Videoesque thinking bubble above my head, it would’ve read, “Pretty please don’t call, with a cherry on top.” My job was done. The raise/re-raise dance was such a beautiful ascending ballet of psychology, math, and hollywooding. I had gotten my whole stack in thanks to some serious acting. I fully expected last year’s Best Actor Oscar winner, Matthew McConaughey from “Dallas Buyers Club,” to saunter out holding a statue, “Alright, alright, alright…

But instead, I get a snap call from The Graduate. He confidently turns over his cards – pocket Queens – and I turn over mine. He winces and I stand up. And then I fuck up. My mind instantly flickers to a hand that I had lost the day before with the same exact scenario. AA vs. Queens. The guy had turned a Queen and took a big part of my chips. UGH!!! WHY did my mind have to allow that snapshot of negativity into my head!!??

As if I had asked for it with my visual flashback, the flop comes clean, and the Queen hits the felt like an anvil on the turn, again. I felt like someone had taken the poker table, picked it up, and smashed it over my head. It was a bad twist of fait accompli. It took the will and power of all my Gemini alter egos to pull me up from that table and drag me out of the Borgata poker room.

Want to know what happened next? Think on this image for a little bit…

Grab a Kleenex, wipe your tears, and click here to see what happens next!